Ok, thanks, I'll be here googling all that stuff you said...

So... is PZ saying I should put that boot disk back in and try to run some sort of antivirus thinger?

Yes run from the cd again. See if there is fdisk.exe on the cd. If there is, you can fix the master boot record (boot sector) using fdisk.

From a dos box, run "fdisk /mbr" without the quotes.

If you don't have fdisk, look for some other disk utility that looks like it might work on the boot sector or boot record.

and No Jinx its NOT FuckDis , its fdisk

fix_hdc ?

Incidentally, when the boot disk started, it asked if I wanted to start the network or something so I said yes, and then it asked if I wanted to start from a: or c:

Is there a way to search for this fdisk? Or, would it be under programs?

According to this web page. There should be a tool PTDD (Partition Tool Disk Doctor) that can fix boot sectors. Here's a description. http://www.ptdd.com/fixboot.htm

I'm assuming that you had a standard boot sector on that machine. It would normally only be changed if you ran multiple operating systems on it or if you had a raid on it. Otherwise it should be safe to blast the boot sector.

Under programs Ive got
PassPro
peinst
putty

DiskCheck and other various things I thought I'd try don't see a C:

I think Im too retarded to do this but I really appreciate your help.

The programs that typical solve that were fixboot, fixmbr, etc. I was under the impression fdisk had long been discontinued - moved to the recovery console.

Much of what you just went through would be solved (learned) immediately by the diagnostic. And again, it has at least three sources - on the hard drive, on a CD-Rom, and from the manufacturer web site. If it does not exist, well, you now appreciate why I only recommend computer that provide those diagnostics.

Going back on what you learned. First, BIOS often only be entered from a cold reboot (not from Cntrl-Alt-Del).

Bios then talks to and reads the disk drive computer. In your case the 320 Mb and other disk drive serial numbers, etc. After that, a diagnostic would move on to confirming disk drive computer can actually read all sectors on the disk and other important points.

Once that is done, then boot the machine from another completely different CD - your Windows boot CD. One that is something called a Recovery Console that contains the 'fix windows software on the disk' programs. Either you boot windows or your boot the Recovery Console that contains Fixboot, FixMbr, Bootcfg and other programs.
Details are provided in:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654


Meanwhile, appreciate why I prefer companies that provide those comprehensive hardware diagnostics including Dell and HP. It makes problems so massively easier to understand. In your case, the diagnostics would have immediately said which disk drives actually existed - and not confused the help who assumed the drive had failed.

We had a Dell die 1 year and 1 week after purchase. Boat anchor.
Jim's current HP is the biggest piece of shit we've ever owned. He fights with it more than he uses it.
Thanks for your help.

Are you interested in pursuing this further?

If you get totally fed up, you can always reformat the drive and reinstall.

I gave up... Jim is taking it apart at the moment.

how do you format a drive the computer can't see?